Portable ultrasonography in mass casualty incidents: The CAVEAT examination

Table 1 Classification of multiple casualty incidents

Natural disasters	Man-made disasters
Causes of large scale physical destruction to manmade objects and infrastructure	Hazardous material incidents and Industrial accidents
Earthquakes	Radiation exposure
Volcanoes	Chemical exposure
Mudslides	Inhalation injury
Avalanches	Explosive disasters
Floods
Tsunami	Transportation accidents
Tropical storms, hurricanes, tornadoes	Aircraft
	Marine
Climatic	Railroad
Extreme heat, cold	Highway
Famine
	War related
Fire related	Military casualties
Thermal injury	Civilian casualties
Inhalation injury	Innocent bystanders
Infrastructure, agriculture, and domiciliary damage	Military targets
	Terrorism
	Mass casualty
Epidemics	Bioterrorism
	Genocide
	Major societal dislocations and refugee populations
	Malnutrition, epidemics

Disasters that cause gross physical damage (most likely to cause injuries identifiable by ultrasound) are in bold: There can be a certain degree of overlap between the two categories (“gross physical trauma” and “no gross physical trauma”). Detailed history of the incident should be gathered to determine whether “physical trauma” is present alone, in combination with other factors, or not at all.